This is no time to go wobbly, Republicans. President Obama’s horrifying failure in Syria has left him dazed and adrift. He shuffled onstage within hours of a deadly shooting rampage in D.C. to launch tone-deaf slashing partisan attacks on Republicans, leading even a number of mainstream media cheerleaders to nervously fumble with their pom-poms and wonder what the hell he was thinking. I notice a few of them are muttering about how the blame-Bush stuff has passed its expiration date, too.

One of the big reasons Obama is looking unsteady on his feet is the albatross of ObamaCare, which pins up another failure notice just about every day. The public still doesn’t like it. Everyone with political clout is demanding (and receiving) a carve-out. The ominous rumblings of damage to not just medical insurance, but medicine, grow louder. Millions of taxpayer dollars were seized and wasted on propaganda campaigns to “educate” the public about the Affordable Care Act, and the popularity needle barely budged. Just imagine what the repeal movement could accomplish if they were able to raid the public treasury to set up slush funds for their favorite “public interest” groups!

Rasmussen has a new poll out that shows 51 percent of the public is willing to shut down the government, if that’s what it takes to cut spending and bring health care costs under control. At the very least, this shows there is fertile ground for an insurrection. People know Obama’s approach isn’t working. They’re tired of him, and after the Syrian debacle, even some Democrats are starting to resent him. That includes Democrats in office, who aren’t wild about suffering voter wrath in 2014 to protect him. To paraphrase now-Secretary of State John Kerry, who wants to be the last Democrat to die at the polls for a mistake?

Voters only show up for battle at the polls if someone is sounding the horns. The great danger facing Republicans is the lack of enthusiasm that sabotaged their last presidential race. People won’t rally to the banner of the “We’ll Fight Next Time, Or Maybe the Time After That, We Swear” GOP establishment. Bloodless capitulation and insincere rhetoric don’t move hearts and minds. If the Republican Party claims ObamaCare is awful, but they won’t do anything to stop it when they’ve got a chance, they look like losers. If they won’t stand up for the Constitutional separation of powers, there’s not much of an argument for giving them more representation in Congress. Bold words demand bold action.

Perhaps the GOP leadership could learn something from watching Vladimir Putin grab Obama by the trousers and eject him from the Middle East. The Administration failed to back its words with means and determination. Syria policy was fumbled from gaffe to gaffe, following no long-term strategy except Obama’s political convenience. He babbled about chemical weapons “red lines” because he didn’t want to explain why a hundred thousand dead from conventional weapons didn’t merit intervention. He couldn’t understand why the American people, and their representatives, wouldn’t let him shoot off a few missiles, claim victory, and crank up his flagging poll numbers a notch or two. He was utterly flummoxed when the Russians ran with John Kerry’s gaffe and scored a touchdown. Then he could only fume in silence as Putin wrote a New York Times op-ed that threw his own rhetoric on everything from the U.N. to American exceptionalism right back in his face.

Don’t be Obama in Syria, Republican leaders. Don’t negotiate yourselves into a corner before the other side has a chance to say a word. Don’t underestimate the tide of public opinion swelling beneath your political surfboards.